hy?" asked Tom, giving her a curious look.

She met the look helplessly. She could not have put her vague thought
into words.

"Don't--don't take it away," she said again, and suddenly laid her face
upon his great open palm.

For a minute or two there was silence. Tom sat very still and looked at
the fire.

"No," he said at length, "we won't take it away."

In a few days, however, it was well known for at least fifteen miles
around the Cross-roads that Tom D'Willerby was going to build a new
house, and that it was going to be fitted up with great splendour with
furniture purchased at Brownsboro.

"Store carpetin' on every floor an' paper on every wall," said Dave
Hollister to Molly when he went home after hearing the news. "An' Sheby's
a-goin' with him to choose 'em. He says he'll bet fifty dollars she has
her notions about things, an' he's a-goin to hev 'em carried out, fer
it's all fer her, an' she's the one to be pleased."

It was not many weeks before the rooms were so near completion that the
journey to Brownsboro was made, and it was upon this day of her first
journeying out into the world that Sheba met with her first adventure.
She remembered long afterwards the fresh brightness of the early morning
when she was lifted into the buggy which stood before the door, while
Mornin ran to and fro in the agreeable bustle attendant upon forgetting
important articles and being reminded of them by shocks. When Tom climbed
into his seat and they drove away, the store-porch seemed quite crowded
with those who watched their triumphant departure. Sheba looked back and
saw Mornin showing her teeth and panting for breath, while Molly
Hollister waved the last baby's sunbonnet, holding its denuded owner in
her arms. The drive was a long one, but the travellers enjoyed it from
first to last. Tom found his companion's conversation quite sufficient
entertainment to while away the time, and when at intervals she refreshed
herself from Mornin's basket and fell asleep, he enjoyed driving along
quietly while he held her small, peacefully relaxed body on his knee,
quite as much as another man might have enjoyed a much more exciting
occupation.

"There's an amount of comfort in it," he said, reflectively, as the horse
plodded along on the shady side of the road, "an amount of comfort that's
astonishing. I don't know, but I'd like to have her come to a standstill
just about now and never grow any older or bigger. But I thought the